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Ukulele 4 Kids is beginning school lessons again. I’m looking forward to starting next week with a new bunch of enthusiastic ukulele players. Below is the poster I made using PosterMyWall. Go and see what else happens in my classroom at Learning with ZEAL.

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It’s the time of year again that Santa and Rudolph (Santa’s reindeer) visit the houses of all the good kids while they’re asleep. They’ll be dropping off the ukuleles that the kids have asked for as Christmas presents. No doubt Santa’s elves will be listening on Christmas Day to make sure all kids are playing songs on their new ukuleles. So why not learn to play a couple of easy songs about Santa and Rudolph below.

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In my everyday job as a school teacher I enjoy using technology to support kids learning. The technology is much better when it’s free too! I like to use Wordle to produce some interesting word art. Below is an example, using words from ukulele 4 kids.

From early in 2011 I decided to form two ukulele groups at the school that I teach at. The junior group has members aged 5-8 years of age; and the senior group has members aged 9-13 years of age. A key motivator for kids is being able to watch themselves perform. Watching themselves allows kids to see where they’ve played well, and where they could improve. Another motivating factor for kids is having an audience beyond their classroom mates to perform to. As a result we have performed to our local community and hosted performance videos on Youtube to share our playing with a world wide audience.

Please take the time to have a look at the videos, and leave a positive comment. Everybody I know thrives on praise and acknowledgement, so click on the like buttons too. While you’re visiting our Youtube Channel take the time to look at the other videos. Also, look around the ukulele4kids.com website. We look forward to uploading more videos to share with you when the school year begins again in New Zealand.

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I recently came across a super resource called ‘Uncle Rod’s, Ukulele Boot Camp,’ that I feel would improve the skills of all kids playing the ukulele, whatever their level of playing. The resource’s focus is for ukulele players to learn the basic skills required to allow you to use the ukulele to make music. This method does NOT require you to read music or to learn Music Theory. The resource focuses on learning chords by name & forming them accurately then moving from chord to chord smoothly while strumming the strings in time with the music.

There are two main parts to the resource.

Learning about Chord Diagrams and

Using Practice Sheets

The section on learning about chord diagrams and using the practice sheets is clear and easy to understand. The five practice sheets in the key of C, F, G, A & D are clearly laid out and easy to follow.

In summary, the Ukulele Boot Camp is a simple, challenging idea that will definitely improve your ukulele playing no matter what your level of experience. I’ll be using it to help me teach kids to play the ukulele.